Top Tabs

Thursday, August 28, 2008

SageTV can help you manage and display your entire movie collection including movies stored on your hard drive, on your DVD's etc in almost all movie file format including ripped DVDs.

How Does SageMC Handle Movies?

Movies are displayed in by title, Movie cover-art and genre. The functionality is mostly built-in to SageTV with extra capabilities added with the popular SageMC UI. Features and functionality are similar to MyMovies for VMC or the abandoned Beyond Media's excellent DVD Library that I used to use. The main point here is to use your HTPC to not only be the focal point for TV/PVR functions, but also for your movie collection. Imagine having all of your owned movies stored on a single PC server and accessible from any of your extenders (hardware extenders or SageTV client HTPCs) or even accessible across the internet while you're traveling using SageTV's Placeshifter product.

Follow Your Movie Playback Throughout the House

Just as you can with recorded TV content, you can start watching on one TV, stop playback and move to another TV in the house (or PC using Placeshifter) and resume where you left off. Setup is only required on your SageTV server PC to view and playback those movies on all machines.

Using DVD Profiler as part of this is really closer to the way Vista Media Center MyMovies handles the movie organization. It is NOT as good as MyMovies, but it works pretty well.

Watch the screen-cast below for a feel of how the movies section of SageMC works

Screenshots:

View by Genre - this sorts the movies by the genre assigned to them. Genre can be assigned manually through the interface, using DVD Profiler or by IMDB imports.

You can also change the view to "view by list" instead of icons. This changes the view to a "list" of genres instead of an icon for each genre.

Once you select a genre in this case "action", you'll see a list of all of your movies (online on your hard drive or offline on a DVD) listed out for that genre. You can then select a movie to see more information and/or play that movie.

Once you select a movie title, SageMC will display more information about that movie and give you the option to Play the movie, add it to a playlist, edit the move as well as other options.

If you select "Edit Video Info" you'll then see an additional menu.
From here you can search for movie information from IMDB.com (this can also pull in metadata and the movie cover to save to SageTV, import from DVD Profiler, edit the genre/category and edit the movie title.

If you select IMDB, SageTV will search that title based on your movie file name or folder name if ripped) and provide a list of results form IMDB

You can view additional information about the movie using the IMDB feature of SageTV

And when complete, save the metadata and cover from IMDB if you wish.

Stay tuned to GeekTonic (RSS Subscribe) for part 2 of this article where I'll review how to set up SageTV's Movie management using either DVD Profiler or IMDB.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

If you’re interested in Home Theater PCs, check out Monday’s Systm Video Podcast by Revision3. Patrick Norton hosts PCMag.com’s Robert Heron and reviews basic HTPC requirements, hardware, discusses tuner cards, Hauppauge HD-PVR, Vista Media Center and even a mention of SageTV, BeyondTV and MediaPortal. I watched the podcast on my SageTV HD Extender from the comfort of my couch. I'd like to see them focus on the various software packages available and the setup in future podcasts.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Want to time-shift or record your HD content to your HTPC without DRM? In the market for one of those awesome Hauppauge HD-PVR 1212 devices (read my first impressions on the device here) that let you record any content (HD, SD, digital etc) from your cablebox, satellite box or any other device with a component cable output? If so, Amazon (affiliate) has the best deal I've seen on these so far with the HD-PVR for $209.99 with free shipping! The next best price is $230 with shipping from NewEgg.

Now is a good time to pick one of these up because

Hauppauge has fixed the overheating issues with the earlier units

Hauppauge should have their surround sound driver upgrade available this week (tentative)

ShowAnalyzer has commercial detection working (in beta) for the HD-PVR recordings and Comskip, VideoReDo and BeyondTV aren't too far away from HD-PVR support.

If you use a Home Theater PC (HTPC), you likely are "in" to skipping those commercials. Two of the best commercial skipping applications are comskip (which I've used for a while now) and ShowAnalyzer. I'm planning to give ShowAnalyzer a try this month just to compare the two and also because ShowAnalyzer has H.264 support in its most recent private beta. That means my SageTV HTPC will soon be able to detect commercials for the Hauppauge HD-PVR! Even if you already are using Comskip or another commercial detection program, I recommend you purchase a copy of ShowAnalyzer today. Find out why below.What is ShowAnalyzer?
ShowAnalyzer is used for detecting and removing commercials from TV programs that have been recorded using HTPC software such as SageTV, BeyondTV, Windows Media Center, Vista Media Center, MythTV, GBPVR and more. With ShowAnalzyer installed, your HTPC checks each recorded show for commercials and marks them so you can skip the commercial with a press of the button. What's New for ShowAnalyzer?
Jere, the developer of ShowAnalyzer announced the following on the SageTV forums:

ShowAnalyzerSuite V1.0 is ready for beta testing. The new version is full of new features and was written from the ground up. The biggest new feature for me will be the h.264 (and therefore HD-PVR) support.
It's not perfect yet and likely has some bugs, but if your adventurous and want to be one of the first to try out the new version, Jere's distributing the installer in a private forum at http://www.dragonglobal.biz/forums. If you want to check out those new features and are willing to give the beta a try head over to the dragonglobal site, purchase the ShowAnalyzer Suite, register on the forums & send Jere a PM

If you're not up to beta testing, the public release date will be September 1st.

Price Increase - AND free lifetime upgrades at current price if you purchase before September 1st.
With ShowAnalyzerSuite V1.0 nearing release to the world at large, the price must increase to cover the higher royalties that the MPEG Licensing Authority requires.
Starting September 1st, the prices will be as follows:
ShowAnalyzerSuite (includes 1 year of upgrades): US$29.98
Maintenance Renewal (one additional year of upgrades starting from purchase date or expiration of current upgrade license, which ever is longer): US$14.99
The September 1st date is dependent on V1.0 being released that day.Good News for current owners of ShowAnalyzer & those who buy before September 1st
As appreciation to the beta testers (not private testers), everyone who has purchased ShowAnalyzer prior to September 1st will get lifetime upgrades. To cover the next royalty increase, there will be another price increase when I add the ability to actually cut the commercials out of the file. Since ShowAnalyzerSuite will then include encoders, the MPEG Licensing Authority will want more royalties. I am considering making the encoders (thus the higher price) optional, but I haven't decided yet. Regardless of my decision, it will be considered an upgrade, not a new product.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

It's that time again when all the new shows begin again. The Fall 2008 TV Premieres start this week and I have compiled a complete list for you. I've included the premieres for Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, SciFi, CW and more and tried to make it as accurate and complete as possible, but let me know if you notice anything out of place - it's very difficult to get these right as the networks tend to change things around quite a bit.

I've included start times (US Eastern Time) and dates and noted which season each show is in. I typically just pick the shows I want to watch and the shows I think I might want to check out and set them all up to record. Many times I never get around to watching some of those new shows since I often wait to see how they do (and whether they'll be canceled) before I get to involved in the show. To be honest, theres not a single new show in this list that has caught my eye so far. I could be missing a gem in there somewhere so let me know if you have one you're looking forward to that's a new series premiere.